D&D 5E Exploring Eberron: Now Available!

Eberron creator Keith Baker’s Exploring Eberron, with new races, subclasses, monsters, and tons of setting information is now available in PDF format!

Also, Keith will be on the Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk podcast in a couple of weeks with a great competition to give away three hardcovers! Be sure to brush up on your Eberron lore!

Discover Uncharted Depths

Join Eberron setting creator Keith Baker in this tour through the lands, oceans, and planes of Eberron. Exploring Eberron presents Keith's vision of Eberron like never before, with fresh lore and rich illustrations to bring the setting to life.

In this book, Keith takes players and Dungeon masters on a thrilling dive into Eberron and its thirteen planes. Encounter the monstrous folk of Droaam, the goblinoid Heirs of Dhakaan, the Mror dwarves and their Realm Below, and the sahuagin and merfolk dwelling beneath the waves. Embrace faiths of altruism, pragmatism, and darkness. Browse Dolurrh's Vault of Memories, seek the Amaranthine Cities of Irian and Mabar, meditate with the Gith monks of Kythri, and much more.

The adventure won't be easy! Mighty friends and foes await - from legendary archfey and proud sahuagin to nightmarish quori and alien daelkyr. Eberron is a world in need of heroes, but take heart: between these pages lie a host of player options for would-be heroes to enjoy. You'll discover new archetypes for the artificer, cleric, druid, monk, and bard. Play unique Eberron races and subraces including gnolls, Dhakaani goblinoids, aasimar of diverse faiths, and ruinbound dwarves. Uncover a wealth of magic items from around the world, bear symbionts that bond with your very flesh, wield dragonmark focus items - perhaps even manifest a Siberys dragonmark of immense power.

FAQ
New FAQ by Keith on his blog

Q: What is Exploring Eberron?

A: Exploring Eberron (ExE) is a 248 page book written by Keith Baker stuffed with new lore, giving depth to topics such as the dwarves of the Mror Holds and the 13 planes.

Production
Q: Where will ExE be sold? What formats? When will it be available?

A: ExE is available exclusively on the dmsguild in hardcover and pdf

Q: Will ExE be available on DnDBeyond?

A: Without the intervention of Wizards of the Coast, the dmsguild has the sole licensing rights to third party Eberron content. If you're upset about this, tweet at them

Q: Did I miss out on a kickstarter or something? Are there preorders?

A: The dmsguild does not allow kickstarted products nor does it have the infrastructure for preorders.

Q: Didn't I hear about this book months ago? What happened?

A: Uh, life happened. Exploring Eberron ran into a variety of production issues, as detailed here and here. A combination of personal issues in Keith's life, prioritizing more urgent projects like the Adventure Zone card game, and COVID have delayed the book significantly.

Content
Q: What's in the book?

A: You can check out the table of contents, a scroll-through preview by Sly Flourish, and a variety of previews from the book's production. The first 200 pages are dedicated almost exclusively to new lore, then chapters 6, 7, and 8 provide new mechanical content for both players and DMs.

Q: There's mechanical content? Is it balanced?

A: The production team has had an extensive team of playtesters review the material on a variety of metrics, including balance.

If you want to know more about Eberron, please check out /r/Eberron, the discord, Keith's blog, and the Manifest Zone podcast. There's even a brand new episode dedicated to the book!

Reviews

Sly Flourish
Todd Talks
Merric's Musings: Part 1
All Things Lich
Dungeon Mapster of None
The Mania
411 Mania
The Tome Show
Total Party Thrill

 

[TwoSix]

Certainly, and I'd do both those things if I was going to have an adventure in Mabar. I'd never send a group of adventures into Mabar if their only method of survival was casting death ward, any more than I'd send them to a major adventure in a sahuagin capital with only a single character casting water breathing. As ChaosOS mentioned, a ring of resistance gives you ongoing protection; and again, if I have adventurers going to the heart of Mabar I might have them have a blessing from one of the Architects of Irian or a similar effect that makes it POSSIBLE for them to go to this incredibly deadly environment without risk. The Hinterlands ARE a safe haven in the destination... but there's also nothing that prevents the Empress of Shadows from having a building in the Amaranthine City shielded with death ward precisely to provide that safe haven when she wants to talk to mortals.

Exactly. The whole reason to to put in extreme mechanics on the planes is to make their exploration potential become a function of plot, not a function of character capability. Even for mid-to-high level characters, exploring Mabar is extremely perilous unless the plot has unfolded in such a way as to make it safer.

 

[Weiley31]

Hmm, I do like alot of the subclasses and really dig the Forge Adept (for my 5E Warblade, a Forge Adept NPC giving my PC his signature weapon and what it would be called in Goblinoid is a great idea! Considering he follows the Iron Heart Discipline) and the extended stuff for the Kalashtar and Quori Lineages are all great.

I am a tad bit disappointed/slight nitpick with how the Way of The Living Weapon Monk subclass works, as a Kalashstar, since it really doesn't have "specific rules" for Gentle's Eldritch Claws except for saying that Kalahastars who follow the way of this subclass can "generate ectoplasms, manifesting claws made of shadow." Which is only a real biggie if your a strict Kalashtar player.

It's alot of "flavor" texting required for said claws basically. I was hoping it was more like following the rules of like a Soulknife's Mind Blade or even the idea of "Pact Weapon" for a monk. Plus when I look at the cover of the book and the basic image they have in the section, said claws look nowhere near like they are made outta shadows. Ectoplasms still make sense though.


I know this is completely pointless if your playing other races or whatever.

 

[Teemu]

Certainly, and I'd do both those things if I was going to have an adventure in Mabar. I'd never send a group of adventures into Mabar if their only method of survival was casting death ward, any more than I'd send them to a major adventure in a sahuagin capital with only a single character casting water breathing. As ChaosOS mentioned, a ring of resistance gives you ongoing protection; and again, if I have adventurers going to the heart of Mabar I might have them have a blessing from one of the Architects of Irian or a similar effect that makes it POSSIBLE for them to go to this incredibly deadly environment without risk. The Hinterlands ARE a safe haven in the destination... but there's also nothing that prevents the Empress of Shadows from having a building in the Amaranthine City shielded with death ward precisely to provide that safe haven when she wants to talk to mortals.

It doesn't seem like we're going to see eye to eye on this, and that's fine. To me the core is that I'd never SEND adventurers to Mabar unless I was also providing them with protection; the fact that they have that protection and thus are SAFE from the deadly environment doesn't change the idea it would kill any normal mortal who found themselves there... unless, again, they went to the Hinterlands, which is why Mabar has the Hinterlands.

I get it, and I do think that it makes sense that Mabar itself kills living creatures. The only problem is the speed of it. Since it’s so quick, it creates the binary situation where the core of Mabar is completely inaccessible unless you have specific magic items. It doesn’t allow for interesting scenarios where you could risk losing the protection, because if you do lose it, you’re going to die before you can come up with something protective (unless you of course have the right spells—non-casters need not apply!).

 

[ChaosOS]

okay.. the book is already an electrum best seller! Congrats to Keith and the team!

In the discord the editor has clarified they're already Platinum, the dmsguild does a mass metal update every 6 hours and just happened to cache ExE when it was electrum

 

[Weiley31]

I think it brings up something really interesting: Eberron has 3.5 in its DNA. The original ECS and supplements really leaned into the system and made solid use of feats, prestige classes, monster templates and other fundamentally 3.5-ish systems. Although I understand the complaints about 3.5 era games, including Pathfinder, and myself prefer 5Es lighter approach overall, I often feel like there's something "missing" from 5E Eberron, mechanically speaking.

In my 5E FR/Eberron games, I use ALOT of 3.5 lore/terms/etc. That's TOO MUCH LORE for DND to just let go/drop.

 

[Bolares]

So, this is the first book of the Keith Baker Canon, I see a lot of people using Kanon to refer to it... I propose a different term.

How about Cownon? XD

 

[Teemu]

There’s another unfortunate side-effect of Mabar’s deadly trait. Since the entire party will have permanent necrotic resistance to survive the planar trait, all those necrotic damage dealing undead denizens will be much less dangerous. It creates a loop that renders the most dangerous plane into not so dangerous after all. You can’t adventure in Mabar proper without the resistance, and thus you’ll shrug off many of its dangers.

 

[Weiley31]

Dude the Goblin Glossary section is pretty in-depth/awesome.

I think I'm gonna mine all this for my Warblade Character and FR Goblinoid related stuff. I'm also enjoying the Merfolk section.

 

[Wishbone]

There’s another unfortunate side-effect of Mabar’s deadly trait. Since the entire party will have permanent necrotic resistance to survive the planar trait, all those necrotic damage dealing undead denizens will be much less dangerous. It creates a loop that renders the most dangerous plane into not so dangerous after all. You can’t adventure in Mabar proper without the resistance, and thus you’ll shrug off many of its dangers.

Yugoloths are still fine however.

 

[darjr]

Is it possible there is a new Eberron box?